Alone
by Arlownay
Summary: The only thing worse than being haunted, is being alone.


**Alone**

**by: Arlownay**

She was alone.

But, as she hit against the glass of the pyramid, she couldn't help but think that she was worse than alone. She was going to be trapped within the glass walls for the rest of her life, and there was nothing that she could do about it. She slammed her hand against the wall in one more attempt to escape, and once again, the wall stayed where it was - a clear testament to the fact that the one that had imprisoned her within the walls of the pyramid had clearly thought the situation through ahead of time.

Especially since the sand around her was quickly rising, and she was sure, without a shadow of doubt, that within seconds, she was going to suffocate beneath it, if she didn't run out of air first.

"Somebody...please...help me!" she managed to muster enough energy to yell the message, hoping that someone would be able to hear her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone walking beneath her glass prison - it appeared to be Yuugi and Jonouchi. Even in a semi-delerious state as she was now, she was sure that that was who she saw. Her hands balled up into fists, she pounded on the glass walls, determined that the two younger duelists should find her and help her.

As much as she hated to admit it, she need help. The sand was flowing at a faster rate into her prison, and she was sure that it was going to be a mere matter of moments before the inevitable happened.

* * *

Mai's eyes flickered open. She almost didn't believe that she was alright. She had been having similar dreams since the months after the Battle City tournament, and each dream was more vivid, more terrifying than its predescessor.

Wiping beads of sweat off of her face with her hand, she sat up in her bed, the blankets drawn around her as if they could protect her from the outside world. She glanced around the room that she was going to be staying in for the next few days - wondering if there was a chance that her captor from Battle City could be hiding behind a potted plant or leering at her from outside the window that faced the city square.

She sighed, and let go of the blankets.

She knew why she was scared. The reason that she was often frightened beyond belief at nighttime, for fear that the dream of her imprisonment in the shadows would include her captor as well. And that he'd be there, which was something that she could, quite frankly, picture without having him in the dream.

She pulled the blankets back, and got out of bed, her steps making no noise as she walked towards the window at the end of the room.

She leaned a bit forward so that she would be able to see everything below her bedroom in the hotel.

Darkness.

She squinted, hoping that maybe the darkness was just as a result of it being nighttime, but even so, in a city, it was highly unusual for there to be _nothing_ below her, even when it was no longer daytime.

The more that she thought about it, the more unusual it seemed to her, and the more it seemed to remind her of Battle City and the Rare Hunters. Not to mention all the duelists that she had encountered when she had been working towards obtaining a spot in the finals of the tournament. She had heard talk of them losing their rarest cards to the Rare Hunters - and how when she was imprisoned, the Darkness had seemed as though it had swallowed the world.

_Mai..._

Her eyes widened, and every muscle in her body tightened.

"No..."

_Do you remember me?_

"You're supposed to be gone!" she cried, whipping her head around to see if she could locate the source of the voice.

_I could never be gone, Mai._

"Yuugi got rid of you!"

"On the contrary, I am quite alive."

She froze. "Yuugi got rid of you," she repeated, trying to sound as calm as she possibly could.

Malik laughed - a cruel-sounding, malicious laugh.

"You're shaking," he said. "You're afraid - scared that you're going to be imprisoned once more, and no one's going to save you."

She heard him take a few steps closer to her.

"That you're going to be forgotten...But I haven't forgotten you...No, how could I? I did so _enjoy_..." he trailed off, in back of her, his arms wrapped around her, and her, to frozen with fear to move an inch.

"Your _friends_ have long since forgotten about you," he whispered in her ear. "And soon, everyone else will too."

* * *

Mai awoke once more - her eyes fixated on the ceiling - not wanting to figure out if he had stuck around. It was still night, judging by the fact that it light had not yet begun to shine through the window in her room. However, she pulled the blankets back once more, and got out of bed.

"It won't do any good to keep thinking about the past like that," she told her self, as she peered out the window once more, this time making out the tops of the buildings, and the cars below. Within a few hours, she'd be able to see more of the city, which would make her certain of the fact that she was no longer trapped within her nightmare.

"After all, it was just a nightmare," she said, wondering why she was still dwelling on it. Perhaps it'd made her realize that she was alone now. And there was no one that would save her if something bad did happen to her. But she had to remind herself that she didn't need help. She was stronger than the younger duelists she had met during Duelist Kingdom and Battle City, stronger than all of them combined.

"Really. Are you sure it was just a nightmare?"


End file.
